In the last few years I’ve seen so much negativity in the media in the UK about South Africa, it ranges from gun crime and how dangerous it has become to live in SA or the ever expanding AIDS epidemic. As a South African living abroad I’m sick to death of hearing about John Simpson’s diatribes on how Jo’burg has a daily murder rate as high the deaths caused by sectarian violence in Baghdad!
SA is going through a very difficult period and it hurts to see the huge obstacles the country faces in the coming decades, let alone having to listen to the snooty opinion of the British media on our situation! London (where I live) isn’t exactly that safe either, anyone seen the news recently? Sometimes it feels like the Western media want our fragile democracy to fail.
But my point is how can South Africa shake off all these negative stereotypes and be portrayed in a positive light for a change?
To ‘watzzzup’ I didn’t post this Q so you could expouse your pointless racist views! By Euros I take you mean white people yeah? Have you seen my avatar?That’s me you fool, I’m a white South African, I love my country but I sure as hell ain’t gonna be blamed for apartheid which happened 40 years before I was born! Having been abroad for most of my life I’ve had the had the benefit of not been indoctrinated and as such I have friend of different races and religions over here in the UK, I certainly don’t believe SA belongs to me or anyone else but to all South Africans who just want to live in peace! Please take your racist view elsewhere ‘watzzzup’, you’re no bad than the AWB by saying stuff like that!
South Africa can shake all this off by just popularizing all the good things about them. Believe me, as a citizen of Ghana, i have heard worse stories about Ghana over hear, and we both have to face the fact that even though we have greatly advanced and are trying to end all the violence, the West will never popularize the good as much as the bad in Africa. It is a shame because Africa has a lot to offer, and people’s views are distorted because of what the media outside the country shows. The only way that South Africa can shake off the negative stereotypes is by not paying attention to all the negative stereotypes and working hard to end all the negativity that is in the country, and the media will realize that the place and the people are actually not that bad. South Africa is already portrayed as a positive light in Africa, and if your continent or at least another country knows how really good you are and what you have to offer, then you’re fine. Nobody is perfect, everyone has negative stereotypes, and they just have to work together to make those stereotypes really what they are: negative and false.
